Time to get ready for some games this holiday season as Sony announced plans to cut the U.S. price of a PlayStation 3 model by 17 percent and also introduce a less expensive version to boost holiday sales. The company is trying hard to compete with rivals Nintendo Co. (Wii) and Microsoft (News - Alert) Corp (Xbox 360). PlayStation 3 already has the unwanted distinction of being the most expensive game console. But many fans wouldn’t complain as it features a high-definition Blu-ray movie player as well.

 

According to a report in Bloomberg, Sony is cutting the price of PlayStation 3 with an 80-gigabyte hard drive from $499 from $599 with immediate effect. A $399 model with 40 gigabytes of storage goes on sale Nov. 2. Billy Pidgeon, an analyst at research firm IDC (News - Alert) in Framingham, Massachusetts said in a recent interview, that without this, it wasn’t looking like there would be much action for PlayStation 3 this holiday.

 

Since Nintendo’s Wii and Sony’s PlayStation were introduced in last November, Wii has taken a clear lead as far as the market leadership position goes. Sales also trail Xbox 360, which got a boost this month from the release of the ``Halo 3’’ video game. Analysts feel that a lower price for PS3 would attract die-hard console fans who are looking for a high-definition DVD player. They expect Sony to sell as many as 450,000 PlayStation 3 consoles in November and almost 1 million in December. NPD Group Inc., a Port Washington, New York-based researcher, stated that consumers have purchased 6.3 million Xbox 360s, introduced a year earlier.

 

As if just to highlight the ability of the console t play movies, the $399 model comes with a Blu-ray DVD of “Spider-Man.” The price cuts in the United States come on the heels of the company cutting the prices of the PS3 and Japan and Europe.